Bysiewicz hopes Wall Street tag sticks to Murphy

Brian Lockhart

Updated 2:19 pm, Sunday, May 20, 2012

Photo: Jessica Hill, Associated Press

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Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Chris Murphy, right, passes by candidate Susan Bysiewicz as she is interviewed by the media during the Connecticut Democratic state convention at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Conn., Saturday, May 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Chris Murphy, right, passes by candidate Susan Bysiewicz as she is interviewed by the media during the Connecticut Democratic state convention at Central Connecticut State

Listening to Susan Bysiewicz's criticisms of U.S. Rep Chris Murphy, the Democrats' Senate nominee is a Wall Street stooge, his road to higher office financed by the 1 percent and paved atop the backs of the other 99 percent.

"We are in this terrible economic mess right now because Congress has been too cozy with Wall Street," Bysiewicz said last week when filing paperwork to challenge Murphy in August's primary. "Chris Murphy is too cozy with Wall Street."

Murphy cannot cite the importance of the financial services industry to Connecticut -- a view shared by many in a state so heavily-dependent on Fairfield County taxes -- without Bysiewicz's campaign calling him out for it, as staffers did in a recent email to Hearst Connecticut Newspapers.

Her side has even taken aim at Murphy's relationship with, and campaign donations from, fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Himesn of Greenwich, a former Goldman Sachs executive up for re-election in November.

And yet Murphy is the candidate endorsed by groups that consider themselves allies of the middle- and working-class voters whose interests Bysiewicz claims she will better represent in Washington.

The United Auto Workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the State Council of the Service Employees International Union, the Connecticut Communications Workers, the Connecticut Education Association, the Uniformed Professional Firefighters Association of Connecticut, the Connecticut Laborers District Council and the Working Families Party have united behind Murphy.

Another organization, Connecticut Citizen Action Group, is likely to back Murphy this week. Although CCAG Executive Director Tom Swan, a vocal critic of Wall Street, declined to name the candidate his group is endorsing, Swan said, "Chris Murphy has been a very good elected official who has consistently sided with consumers."

He called Bysiewicz's criticisms of Murphy "a desperate effort to remain relevant."

Asked earlier this year and again at last Saturday's Democratic convention why her message does not appear to be resonating with these organizations, Bysiewicz said she is at a loss.

The explanation provided by her campaign manager, Jonathan Ducote, is the unions have taken cues from the party establishment. Observers have said leading Democrats abandoned Bysiewicz after she weighed a run for governor in 2010, then jumped into the attorney general's race -- only to be disqualified by the state Supreme Court.

"Union after union, group after group told us going through the endorsement process (that) Susan has always been someone working families can count on," Ducote said. "What each mentioned in one capacity or another is the rest of the congressional delegation is with Murphy, most of the statewide (officer holders) are, and the inner circle of the Democratic Party is with him, so we're going to be as well."

Bysiewicz launched her current strategy against Murphy in late January as the national media was focused on GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's low 15 percent tax rate.

She pounced on a vote Murphy and 33 other congressional Democrats cast in May 2010 against a bill, backed by labor and opposed by Wall Street, that among other things would have closed certain tax loopholes enjoyed by the wealthy.

Murphy's campaign responded that the congressman in the past had voted to close the loophole but in this case was not comfortable the legislation in question added $54 billion to the deficit. But Bysiewicz has refused to accept that explanation, bringing the vote up at every opportunity. Her campaign points to six other votes Murphy cast between 2007 and 2011 to raise the debt limit.

Then there are the donations Murphy's received from the financial services industry. Bysiewicz's team says data at Open Secrets.org shows Murphy raked in over $1.5 million between his initial congressional race in 2006 and 2012.

Bysiewicz also criticizes Murphy's support of the 2008 Wall Street bailout. His campaign has countered he helped pass the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill in the face of an intense lobbying effort.

Murphy's campaign did not directly address Bysiewicz's individual allegations. But in a statement Friday, spokeswoman Taylor Lavender said Bysiewicz has decided to focus on Wall Street "because it polls well."

"Nobody in Connecticut is buying the attack because it's made up out of thin air," Lavender said. "If Bysiewicz were really the candidate fighting Wall Street, why hasn't a single grassroots progressive group in the state supported her?"

"He did make that vote. He does get a lot of money from Wall Street financial sectors," McLean said.

Sal Luciano, executive director of AFSCME, said Murphy is a friend of the union who earned the endorsement.

"Chris has done a lot of things to show he's on the side of working people," Luciano said. "If he's also done other things, then he has. But we have not seen him take a position for the 1 percenters against the 99 percent."

Lindsay Farrell, head of the Working Families Party, said, "In a Democratic primary candidates hope to draw contrasts in circumstances where it's often very difficult to draw those contrasts. "We're very confident in Chris' ability to stand up for working people and the middle class," Farrell said.